Have you ever caught one of those TV commercials for a company you have never heard of and said, “Wow, I didn’t know they did all that”? For example, Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) pretty much controls the fabric of our every day lives, and, unless you are an investor, you probably never think about them. My guess is that you are sitting in a room or eating something right now that ADM has something to do with. ADM provides materials for cakes, cereal, drinks, candy, hot dogs, pet food, plastics, paints, wax, polish, vitamin’s, and much more. Akamai does the same for the Internet.

Akamai is the grain and protein of online content delivery. It’s the leading content delivery network (CDN) provider with a primary focus on content or application acceleration. Gartner says that the application acceleration market will exceed $3 billion by 2010. Garnter schmartner, here are the facts… Of the more than 6 billion people in the world, only about 1 billion are using the internet. Probably only a half a billion people own their own computers, but, with internet usage doubling year after year, probably more than 3 billion people will be using the internet by 2010. With the advent of projects like Edubuntu, OLPC, and Android, a lot more people will be uploading, streaming, and downloading music and video in the coming years.

Akamai was founded by some MIT students and professors in 1998, and they have been working on algorithms to accelerate content over the Internet for 10 years. Actually, during my research for this blog article, I found out that one of the founders, Daniel Lewin, was killed aboard American Airlines flight 11.

Akamai provides the plumbing of the internet by placing servers around the world. It basically caches media content around the edges of the Internet so that content delivery is faster, more reliable, and cheaper. Many ISP’s co-locate Akamai servers, allowing Akamai customers direct channel, B2C (i.e., business -to-consumer), and content delivery. For example, this weekend, Turner Broadcasting will be streaming the NBA All Star game directly to Akamai servers around the world. So, if you happen to be working and watching King James banging the boards, make make sure you have some popcorn and a coke while you watch him.